Muhammara Spread

Well, we’re all about using the whole tin full if nuts my mum expects us to eat daily. She deligiently soaks almonds and walnuts and presses 5 into our hands every morning. I know they are really good for you and all that blah. But we like to treat these nuts differently.

We like them in Pesto’s and other spreads. The moot point this time was other. Because we’ve had a fair bit of pesto. Since sweet child is not too fond too fond of greens, we do a lot of spreads…

Coz I also make a whole lot of bread. And that has to be eaten too.

So ,I tasted Muhammara as part of a mezze platter once and was fascinated by the Flavor profile. The first time I made it, I made pomegranate molasses from fresh pomegranate juice.

But since I had neither fresh not tetrapack juice, nor did I have time to simmer and cool the molasses, I went in for a short cut.

I used a mix of equal amounts of maple syrup and lemon juice.

And that worked fine,only it wasn’t as sticky. So I’ll be making a bottle and stashing the molasses in the fridge soon.

So if you have pomegranate juice,fresh or boxed, all you need to do is place the juice in a sauce pan and add a third of the amount of sugar. That is ,if you add 3cups juice,add 1 cup sugar. Simmer for about half an hour on low heat till it’s syrupy and dark. And of a condensed milk consistency. Any thicker and it will be clogged in the bottle itself.

And you need to toast the nuts. Start with that of course. You may of course toast them in your oven, but we like to keep our eyes on them . And fingers too… Everyone here except me loves toasted nuts. So we start with a cup of walnuts and pecans and are left with 3/4 of a cup. Just as much as what you need.

I like to char the red bell pepper on a direct flame and place in a lidded glass bowl. The charred skin gets released easily.

All you need to do is wash off the skin.

The bread crumbs. Fresh yeast bread crumbs are good , but we love Sourdough. So I used my sourdough slices. Which are of course fabulous.

Having said that, feel free to use your normal bread . You may need to use a little more bread.